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How to Get an Autograph (Value $2,000)

In the dark of the parking garage of his Los Angeles apartment complex, Michael Wehrmann, 35, digs through the trunk of his rented, anonymously respectable black Mercury Grand Marquis. A pretty young woman approaches. ''Every time I see you, you're looking in your trunk,'' she says, unabashedly flirting. ''What's in there?'' He glances at her, blushes and looks back in the trunk, at the professional equipment of an in-person autograph collector -- 3,000 unsigned photographs (filed by name: ''Robert De Niro . . . Yvette Mimieux . . . Julia Roberts . . .''), four electric guitars (you never know where Sting will pop up) and assorted sports equipment (for those days when he runs into Arnold Palmer or Muhammad Ali).

''Just a few bodies,'' Wehrmann deadpans, still looking in the trunk, then turns to make eye contact again, but by now the woman is almost at her car, both hands on her purse.

Michael Wehrmann is embarrassed by his job. He is also probably the best in the world at what he does. Among professional autograph collectors, Wehrmann is widely recognized for being the first to employ paparazzi techniques (car chases, stakeouts) to obtain signatures. ''The first person I started chasing was Michael Jackson, when I was 17,'' he says. ''Every day, wherever Michael went, I would go there.'' (Jackson is generally a reluctant signer, but Wehrmann lures him with barter: ''I give him photos. Like Elizabeth Taylor photos and Shirley Temple photos. He loves that. You hold up a Shirley Temple, he'll come, like, running over.'') While staking out Jackson, Wehrmann became friendly with some paparazzi, who taught him the tricks of tracking -- how to cultivate sources inside restaurants, clubs, airlines and limousine services to help him keep tabs on the comings and goings of the world's most famous people.

They also got him wondering whether autograph collecting, which he'd been hooked on since a Mets game in 1979, might be a good way to make some cash. When Wehrmann started selling signatures, at 17, the business brought him more than money. ''It legitimized me with the photographers, and even with myself,'' he says. ''Now I had an excuse to go out more, because there was a real purpose to it, as opposed to being a kid who's just running around. I wanted to set out to conquer the whole thing if I could.''

Wehrmann is based in New York, but he spends winters in Los Angeles, where he is a leading figure in the core group of 25 or so in-person autograph collectors, almost all of them white men under 35, who make their living this way. The group is bound by a sense of camaraderie (they all have nicknames: Fluffy, Crackhead) that is shot through with contempt. (''I think if it were such a great thing to do, you'd have a better class of people doing it,'' one collector gripes).

The job can be lucrative: top in-person collectors like Wehrmann pull down six figures annually; and even part-timers, many of them students working only three or four nights a week, can make $20,000 to $30,000 a year. Most of these collectors sell their signatures wholesale to autograph dealers. (The Universal Autograph Collectors Club, the largest nonprofit autograph collectors' association, lists more than 200 registered dealers.) A few own mail-order or storefront businesses. And some also sell on Internet auction sites like eBay. Their customers, these collectors say, are their demographic peers: mostly men between the ages of 20 and 35 who buy autographs for themselves, not as gifts, and whose favorite products are suggestive portraits signed by young actresses, models or Playboy Playmates; hot names now include Jessica Alba and Kirsten Dunst, whose autograph runs around $115. A signed photo of Julia Roberts fetches $175; Russell Crowe brings in $150.

Some in the business say that the growth of professional in-person collecting has diminished the value of high-end dealers' wares. But Charles Sachs, owner of the Scriptorium in Beverly Hills, a leading dealer in autographs and manuscripts, takes a contrary view, saying it ''stimulates the market and encourages young people to develop an interest in autographs.'' Sachs also says he thinks that the relationship these collectors have with their product adds a new dimension to the business. ''It is a pipeline of material which is reliable to the extent that one trusts the integrity of these people for getting genuine autographs,'' he says. ''When you buy their autographs, you're buying their story.''

As recently as 10 years ago, most of the autograph collectors in Los Angeles were still true fans, according to Jan Schray, a 65-year-old widow in North Hollywood who was among the first of L.A.'s autograph collectors to turn her hobby into a job. In 1985, to help pay medical bills after her husband's heart attack, Schray issued her first catalog of in-person signatures. Soon other fans followed suit, and as collecting turned professional, more autograph hounds began asking stars for ''multiples'' -- usually 2 to 10 signatures at a time, though depending on a star's patience, the numbers can soar to 20 or higher. (When a star signs multiples, collectors call it ''racking''; a really good night is a ''rack-fest.'')

As the market for contemporary entertainment signatures grew, the character of the collectors turned mercenary, and field tactics became increasingly aggressive. One dealer hired a group of 17- to 19-year-old boys nicknamed the Baseballers (they always wore baseball caps), whose antics drove collectors like Schray to retirement: they marked up older collectors' clothes with Sharpie pens, slashed tires and punched and shoved anyone who got in their way. They also introduced the practice of ''ripping'' stars who refused to sign -- hollering, insulting and teasing mercilessly. At an Academy luncheon honoring the 1993 Oscar nominees, they made Angela Bassett cry.

The Baseballers are gone now, but they changed the rules of L.A.'s autograph world for good. Young collectors like Ben, a longhaired, rock-star handsome 21-year-old U.C.L.A. graduate who devotes his weekends to professional collecting (he says he makes about $600 a week selling all his autographs to a single dealer), have thoroughly internalized their ethos. At times they have been known to engage in what Ben calls the Beverly Hills Debeautification Program, which consists of strewing garbage over the streets of posh Los Angeles neighborhoods where celebrities live. In the glove compartment of his black Toyota pickup truck, Ben keeps a four-page single-spaced handwritten list of stars' license plate numbers, most of which he has memorized. ''Go ahead,'' he says. ''Test me.'' He spends many days and nights driving around Los Angeles with an eye out for stars' vehicles, which he then follows wherever they go. Results of this technique are spotty. ''Kristin Scott Thomas was all scared or whatever when we followed her home,'' he says. Car chases, he says, work best with young stars who aren't used to being followed and may initially find the effort flattering. One of Ben's friends who followed Mena Suvari before the success of ''American Beauty'' got her to sign 35 photographs in a Los Angeles boutique. Suvari has since become reluctant to sign. ''I ruined her,'' the friend brags.

As stars grow wise to the autograph-collecting business, some choose to sign only one item per collector. In that event, a collector can run back to his car, make a quick costume change, adjust his posture and his voice and go back for more. One collector's cache of disguises includes a Rasta hat, a drab olive baseball cap with a stringy brown wig attached, several styles of sunglasses and a couple of changes of clothes.

Other stars think they can discourage autograph sales by placing personal inscriptions above their signatures. This, explains Steve Woolf, a professional collector, is where acetone comes in: a light application of the chemical removes the inscription without damaging the photograph. For a client who wanted sexy photographs signed by Robin Givens, an actress who generally refuses such requests, Woolf scored a ''big coup.'' ''I got a topless shot signed by her. Had to be creative for that. I took a black Sharpie and drew a bikini top on her. Then I can remove that. She would never in a million years sign that if she knew it was nude.''

Surveying such tactics, Wehrmann observes, ''As bad as this is and as much as these guys curse and as much as these celebrities know that everybody sells, with very few exceptions almost all of them seem to still sign autographs.'' He explains that ''signing an autograph is really the definition of being a famous person. I mean, what happens when you watch a TV movie about someone who is up and coming? The thing that defines them suddenly being famous is that somebody comes up and asks them for an autograph. There's a scene like that in every movie. And that's the defining moment. That's when you become famous.''

The relationship between autograph collectors and celebrities is not simply parasitic; it is symbiotic. For celebrities, autograph hounds provide a very specific kind of acknowledgment that is central to the experience of stardom. One reason Wehrmann has succeeded in this business is that he knows how to give them the kind of attention they crave in order to get the autographs he wants. Over the years, with tact and good timing, he has built professional relationships that are both solid and surreal. ''When Keith Richards signs, he always tells me, you know, raspy voice: 'Keep the prices up,' '' and ''Andy Warhol used to stop and talk for, literally, a half-hour on the street. He wanted to know everything -- who's nice, who's not nice.''

Still, Wehrmann has no illusions about the depth of these connections. He invokes the inevitable analogy: ''It's sort of like hunting,'' he explains. ''People hunting. You're out there for your prey.''

Which is to say, Mick Jagger didn't have a chance.

One day in late January, Wehrmann got a tip that Jagger would be leaving on the 4:30 American Airlines flight to New York. We left Wehrmann's apartment at 2:45 and pulled into a spot in an LAX parking garage one level above the arrival area at about 3:20. From that vantage point, Wehrmann could keep an eye on the curbside check-in without being spotted, either by other collectors or by the greeters who escort V.I.P.'s to their gates. He spent the next half-hour pulling photos of Jagger from his trunk, peeling protective plastic off the guitars, testing pens on an old copy of The Hollywood Reporter, peeking down at the curb every few minutes and calling ''an associate'' in New York (another collector, who trades tips with Wehrmann and would drive to J.F.K. to catch Jagger when he left the plane).

Wehrmann is a good-looking guy, nicely built, with thick brown hair parted down the middle and feathered in back. Striding from the parking garage to the terminal in denim shorts, a baggy T-shirt and beat-up white leather Asics, he had the casual vitality of a laid-back Little League coach -- except for the bright red electric guitars he was carrying.

At 3:50, as a Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows pulled over, Wehrmann got his game face. His close-set brown eyes widened, and the little worry wrinkle next to his left eyebrow almost disappeared. The mild, closed-lipped smile of a happy child appeared. You wouldn't want to let him down.

Wehrmann thrust a guitar at me as we walked outside (''Just hold it like this,'' he said. ''I'll do the talking''), and there was no time to object because the car door opened and Jagger unfolded himself onto the sidewalk, his bodyguard close behind. Wehrmann had pulled me into the position he occupies every day -- standing in front of a star, hamstrung between supplication and demand.

''Hey, Mick!'' Wehrmann asked sweetly. ''Can you do two today? 'Cause it's Sunday? And we've been real good?'' Jagger, sour and gray, took the pen and made a bunch of vertical slashes on one of the guitars ($2,000 retail).

''Mick, since it's Sunday, and we've been real good, could you sign two?'' he said, pointing Jagger toward the guitar I was holding. ''How about -- '' but Jagger, in silver thick-framed sunglasses, turned his face away: ''That's all, boys. Bon voyage,'' he said, with a weary French inflection, drifting past us through the door.

Wehrmann's game face lasted for most of the drive home; but despite the pleasure he obviously gets from the chase, Wehrmann has serious qualms about what he's doing with his life. He says he's humiliated by in-person collecting, which he compares to panhandling. ''If you're doing it with their consent, it's a step above begging,'' he says. ''If you do it without their consent, then celebrities think you're cheating them and lying and being deceitful. So it's kind of a lose-lose situation.''

These days Wehrmann is spending most of his time trying to arrange signing deals with actors through their agents. He pays celebrities a set fee per signature, then sells these items wholesale to dealers. Such deals have been common for professional athletes since the early 1980's, but they are still relatively unusual among entertainers. So far he has made deals with Little Richard, Jerry Lewis, Charlton Heston and cast members from the original ''Star Trek,'' ''The Honeymooners'' and ''Diff'rent Strokes.'' For Wehrmann the arrangement saves time (a ''Star Trek'' cast member recently signed 200 items for him in 20 minutes); more important, it saves face.

''When people ask me what I do, meeting women or whatever, that throws me,'' he says. ''I still don't have a down-pat answer. I tell them more about the deals.'' The deals, he figures, are normal business. ''Waiting out front of some restaurant hoping somebody's in there who's gonna come out and sign your thing is not normal.'' Normal is one thing that Wehrmann says he believes that professional autograph collectors are not, and that word laces his conversation with the bewilderment of an eternal outsider. Thinking back to the parking garage, Wehrmann furrows his brow: ''You meet somebody normal, and then they look in your trunk. I mean, would you want to have to explain?''

Steve Woolf, 47, a former sales manager for Dodge who quit about three years ago to sell autographs full time, has no trouble justifying his job. He, his wife, Yvonne, 48, and his 20-year-old son, Jeffrey, own a company called I.P.A. Network (short for In-Person Autograph Network), and in America's culture of celebrity, Woolf says that they and others like them play a crucial intercessory role. ''What I am doing is a service for a lot of people out there who are unable to have personal contact with these celebrities and are willing to pay money for it,'' he says. ''I'm the go-between.'' Jeffrey agrees: ''With forgers on the rise, celebrities should be glad that people like us are giving their fans legitimate material and not conning them.''

The Woolfs' vocational idealism is anchored in a straightforward economic argument, best illustrated by a showdown between Jeffrey and Kevin Costner that occurred at a golf tournament in the mid-1990's. As Jeffrey tells the story, the actor responded to his request for an autograph by saying: '' 'I'm not signing that. All you're going to do is just go sell them. Why should I do that for you?' So I kind of broke out of my shell,'' Jeffrey says, ''and I'm like: 'What's the big deal, Mr. Costner? What's so bad about it? You've got your millions.' ''

Though Jeffrey's reasoning is simplistic, it's not groundless. In an increasingly blockbuster-driven business, in a culture where almost everyone views each person he meets as a means to some profitable end, he may have a point. It seems sensible, and arguably just, that in Hollywood even fandom has become professionalized. To defend that position with integrity, however, would require a kind of detachment that autograph collectors do not possess.

Every professional collector I met tried to convince me that what he is doing is ''just a job,'' and yet almost every such statement eventually broke down, because none of the collectors could hide a measure of star-struck, decidedly unbusinesslike anxiety about what stars think of them. Jeffrey Woolf says that many stars ''think you're the scum of the earth. Mel Gibson, Paul Newman, Jim Carrey. But we're people as well. We're people that like movies. That's why it's difficult doing this. An example is Jim Carrey. I love his movies, but I've met him a couple times, and I don't like him as a person.''

Another collector named Rich, who is renowned among his peers for being the only one of their number to become friends with a celebrity -- Angelina Jolie took him to Benihana in Beverly Hills for his 40th birthday in December 1999 -- told me one night outside Muse, a restaurant in Los Angeles, that ''celebrities are just nobodies that everybody's heard of.'' Within seconds of his making this remark, Sarah Jessica Parker walked by us, and he added, earnestly: ''It's sort of neat to think we have cameos in these people's lives. You know, 'cast of thousands.' . . . ''

Such ambivalence among the collectors spoils any attempt to resolve the central tension of their working lives: the question of whether they're really just businesspeople or really just fans. As in any human relationship, there's an economy of enjoyment and use operating here. For autograph collectors, the tension between these dynamics is unusually high, because they've chosen to trade on a capacity for adoration that comes naturally to them, as to most Americans -- the impulse to admire celebrities -- as the primary source of their al income. When the collectors talk about the highlights of their careers, they don't mention the most valuable signatures they ever got; they talk about the times when a star crossed the line and engaged them, whether antagonistically (''Tobey Maguire hates me,'' Ben boasts) or sympathetically (''Angelina says she thinks it's great what I do,'' Rich says). Professional autograph collecting, even at its most aggressive, still expresses the enthrallment of fandom.

Courtney Love emerged one night from a party at the Mondri-an hotel on Sunset Boulevard, carrying what looked to be a double Scotch, neat. She walked directly over when the collectors called her, took a blue Sharpie pen from one of them and signed a bunch of photos. Then, as she was about to walk off, Brian Eick, 28, a professional autograph dealer from Las Vegas, asked her to pose for a photo with him. Instead, she took the Sharpie pen, pressed its tip to his chest and slowly drew a cross over his heart on his white Polo oxford cloth shirt, trailing the horizontal line across his torso. Eick stood immobile, chuckling awkwardly.

Expressionless, she sketched three little hearts on his shoulder and wrote above them: ''You can call me Corky!'' Then she kissed him, leaving a big lipstick mark; hugged him; beamed for the cameras; turned and sashayed back to her limousine. One man who still had an unsigned photo called out to her: ''Courtney! Please come back! Just one more!'' She showed no sign of hearing him.

''I'm from Seattle!'' he cried.

Before getting in her car, she looked up, tossed her blond hair and said in a tone spiked with disdain: '' 'I'm from Seattle?' What does that mean?''

When Love had gone, Eick looked confused. He tried to wipe Love's lipstick off his cheek but succeeded only in smearing it around. ''Damn,'' he said tentatively, as if unsure of his feelings. Then he seemed to decide he was a little angry -- This is just about my favorite shirt,'' he said.

Everybody was quiet for a second. Then somebody said, tough and hopeful, ''Get 300 bucks for that on eBay.'' There was a general murmur of assent. Eick cracked a smile.

All night, as more collectors showed up at the Mondrian, Eick got to tell his Courtney Love story over and over. Nobody could remember anything quite like that ever happening before, and everybody said that it was cool.